It has been announced today that First Solar, Inc. and Southern California Edison (SCE) have signed an agreement to build two large-scale solar power projects in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California.

The agreements are yet to be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. But if it does get an approval, the installations will be among the largest of their kind, and will have a generation capacity of 550 megawatts of photovoltaic solar electricity. This will be enough to provide power to approximately 170,000 homes.

The SCE senior vice president of Power Procurement, Stuart Hemphill, said that Southern California Edison is always looking for innovative ways to deliver clean power from renewable sources and First Solar is an excellent partner in helping them achieve our goals. The agreement will be good for the customers, for the industry and for the environment.

Two solar facilities will be engineered, procured and constructed by the First Solar, using its industry leading thin-film photovoltaic solar modules. The projects comprise of the 250 megawatt Desert Sunlight project near Desert Center, California, and the 300 megawatt Stateline project in northeastern San Bernardino County.

Due to pending network upgrades and the awaited government permits, the construction is scheduled to begin in 2012 for Desert Sunlight and 2013 for Stateline. Both the projects are expected to be completed in 2015.

Both projects will create several hundred construction jobs at each site. And once completed, the solar projects will produce 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy per year.

California currently has a goal of delivering 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2010 and is considering legislation to increase the goal to 33 percent by 2020. These projects will help California reach its renewable energy goals, and are powerful examples of large-scale photovoltaic solar generation becoming a reality in the United States.

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